Sunday, November 09, 2008

Real Housewives? Nah, Real Sad

"Real" Housewives? And this is the real Atlanta? Check it out at Bravo. Atlanta now calls itself Black Hollywood, Black Mecca. The former's true, if you define it as an artifice, fake, frivilous and plain dumb. Rappers, ballers, rump shaking vixens and posers with 5,000 sq ft homes/gas guzzlers--yet will no furniture but a 72 inch flatscreen, a stripper pole...and foreclosure/repo letter from the bank shoved in the stainless steel LG fridge. The latter would be an insult to Muslims. Mecca implies a holy place...a place to journey for knowledge and spiritual awakening. Ha! Guess that's DC again, eh? My story "Doggy Style," reprinted in Zoetrope about two stray dogs--one a Pit Bull escaped from sports-star financed attck kennel (hey this was two years before Vick--am I Asimov or what?) making their way outta da ATL into "lil Mecca" DeKalb County during a sleet storm was my way of lampooning that notion of ATL as place of Renaissance for blackfolks. And this was before the finacial crisis/Recession, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta.

What a lovely bit of metaphor, indeed allegory, is this friggin' show! It's like the toast to Tyler Perry's jelly! Low class, noveau-riche hoochie wives of NFL and NBA players, "real estate investors" (ha! what's that these days?) and alimony divas. Dentists, doctors, school teachers, engineers? Naw, gurl. Grown-up exemplars of Spelman Women? Huh? A Princeton Tigress like our new First Lady? Please! No, these are the REAL housewives per the white male producers on Bravo who have corrupted the image of women nationwide and figure black folks now need a dose like we need a hole in the head. Conveying the tackiest image of this mythic place called Atlanta. I love it when you fanboys & girls call me a snob, so keep it coming. My time in Charlotte and running back and forth to da ATL was painful, folks. Nothing but traffic and endless burbs, surrounded by malls, rendecks and smiling blond rightwing evangelicals. Like Hip Hop, I was a stank shell of myself when I moved to the Dirrty South...

If I were the mayor, I'd try to put the kabosh on this crap. Having these suburban hookers as ambassadors along with ballers, rappers and rump-shaking club owners is a double-edged sword, as good burghers of te metroplex are discovering. Needless to say, those true working single moms down there--doing checkout at Piggly Wiggly or driving school buses--love the show as entertainment, and then shrug and lament their true lives. Some have teenage sons literally killing themselves emulating the "real" husbands (baby daddies?) of Atlanta: it's not cool being an architect, but if I can show my hoop skills or get a demo to whatever strutting, body-guard/entourage traveling fool I see on the street outside Platinum 21 or Magic City, well my life will be golden! Some have teenage daughters mezmerized by a phony lifetstyle who end up seduced by it, degraded (whether they understand or not) by it, spat out. Now that's real.

Perhaps ...and this is part of the magic of Nove. 4...our young women and men can now look a little farther up I-85, then 95 to the White House for inspiration. Whether it will be a tonic for this tacky sh*t, this gildened ghettofabulousness, who knows. They certainly won't find it on Bravo.

One of the things I was most worried about in the coming days was all the white folks telling me about how they were for Obama. Now I have you publishing this and my first thought is this is another gag on Youtube. How we are going to have no Drama is beyond me?

I had a day off and there was a marathon of these shows on. Like any savage train-wreck, I couldn't help but watch it, and when I finally decided to leave the room (I didnt even bother to turn the tv off, that's how hypnotized I was), I was instantly angry. One reason was for the shallowness that these women emitted; how can Black folks with money just piss it away? The second reason was for purely selfish ones; now that I am a newly single Black man, are these the kinds of women I have to look forward to? Damn I hope not...

Professor - Bravo has treated us to the shallowest vapid lives of the OC, NYC and now ATL...So what's the point of coming to late to this party to lament??? Trash is trash no matter what the color or the location!!!

Whether you or I like it not we’re now officially a nation that worships at the alter of what's ghetto and white trash. When an ignorant uneducated hotel heiress's porno video, or a Pro-Baller's story of knocking up multiple baby mama's can gather press time/space equal to the monumental event of electing Obama President - Then WE have become an F'd up nation!!!

The concept of shunning people and events not worthy of our attention is lost on us today. We have come to love the voyeuristic light of the modern press-media machine shinning on the seedy underbelly of our lives. Like a warm blanket it comforts us as we measure the relative normalcy of our own lives against the buffoonish antics of the likes of Lohan, Hilton, Spears, Snoop, Flavor, and Springer.

Dear professor, PLEASE get back to more bits relating to your crusade against all things "ghetto". WE in the good ol’ US of A all need as many modern-day Don Quixote’s as we can get!!!

That pervasive culture is why I packed up my kid and moved out of ATL. How can I raise a child to believe that education is the key and dignity matters when the stripper P.K. living in the McMansion down the street is tossin up money as if it spoils like milk.

yet with cultural prosperity comes noveau-riche trash. It not a black thing its a lack of class thing.

ATL used to be a mecca for the educated black intellectual, political, and entrepreneurial spirit and now Lil John is honorary mayor.

Chambers, I heard a lot from friends about this show. When I got a chance to watch it, within the first five minutes, I was completely turned off. I hate to admit this; but I immediately made a mental note that these women didn't have any class. And I made a decision that the five minutes a gave them was too much. And despite it being on in my house, and despite how much my sisters were enjoying it from the other rooms, I made it my business to actively ignore the show and any commentary that my sisters and friends provided about the show.

See my commentary on Russia TV

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Listen carefully...you may learn something

About Me

Jack of all trades, master of none; Professor, Georgetown University Journalism MPS; author of the Angela Bivens series of mystery novels, two anthologies, published short fiction and comic books, including a graphic anthology. Voyeur of media pundits; resident pundit on American Culture, race, media & politics for Russia Today. Contributor--MSNBC's the Grio and The Root.com. Movie lover. Proud Princeton booster. Bourbon drinker. Faculty: University of Maryland/UMUC. Married. Lovingly faithful, yet always pulling the flirts even though I am old, mean and out of shape. Must be my pheromones...

A rare DC native, Christopher Chambers was born at Old Freedman’s Hospital at Howard University in the Nation’s Capital, and was raised at 1607 D Street NE when RFK Stadium was still just a vacant lot. He moved to Brooklyn NY and finally Baltimore, Maryland. He attended public schools in Baltimore City and County before attending the McDonogh School in Owings Mills, MD.

Mr. Chambers is an honors graduate of Princeton University and the University of Baltimore School of Law, where he was the first African American in the Law Review. Mr. Chambers served with the US Justice Department from 1994-1997, and taught English, Business Law and Communications at Queens University in Charlotte from 2000-2001. Now he’s lecturer in writing at University of Maryland, University College, and a Professor at Georgetown University’s/SCS Master's Program in Journalism. Mr. Chambers led panels writing, politics/culture, andwas keynote at Georgetown University’s Father Healy Dinner along with NBA Star Dikembe Mtumbo.